


follow the light

by biblionerd07



Category: The Exorcist (TV)
Genre: Character Study, Developing Relationship, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Post-Season/Series 02, Road Trips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-18
Updated: 2018-06-18
Packaged: 2019-05-25 00:20:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,131
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14965026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/biblionerd07/pseuds/biblionerd07
Summary: Marcus gets the call from God to find and save Tomas. Marcus is all too happy to oblige.





	follow the light

“I don’t know where he is,” Mouse says flatly. “He’s gone.”

Marcus can feel anger, white-hot and burning, bubbling up in his throat, behind his eyes. His body is itching to move, to do something, so he spins and drives his fist into the brick wall behind him once, twice, again. It leaves him bleeding and raw and changes nothing.

Like everything else in his miserable life.

 

Marcus had been looking for Peter. He’d had to wait a few weeks for the other man to return from some kind of deep-sea exploration, but that had been almost nice, as long as he didn’t let himself think too much. Sleeping as much as he wanted, eating every day, those were good things. The demon inside Andy had sneered that they could’ve been normal together. And Marcus doesn’t know what normal is—has no concept of it, never has, except to know that it’s decidedly _not him_ —but by God, he was ready to try.

But not by God, in the end. Because standing there on the dock, suddenly Marcus’s heart stopped and the noise in his head stopped and he heard that distantly familiar ringing in his ears that he knows from longing memories. It tore the breath from his chest and he stood stock-still, waiting, ready. He heard one word, and he knew this was God, this was His voice at last again in Marcus’s ear.

“Tomas,” Marcus gasped, because that was the word, and suddenly his entire body, his _soul_ was full of terror, absolute fear like he’d never known, and he knew Tomas was in danger. The strength returned to his limbs in a rush and he turned on his heel and he ran as fast as he could, because he had to find Tomas. God wanted him to find Tomas— _needed_ him to find Tomas.

Later, it occurs to Marcus he might be bitter about that, about the fact that after all this time, God finally came back to him and the only thing He tells Marcus is to find Tomas. But Marcus isn’t bitter, like he was the first time God sent Tomas to him. For one thing, there’s no question in his mind that God wants to protect Tomas, holy Tomas, beautiful Tomas, perfect Tomas made more perfect in his naiveite and pride and the way he jumps headlong into everything. Marcus can’t be bitter about that.

But it’s more than that. The bigger reason is this: Marcus can’t be bitter when God’s instructions line up neatly with what Marcus secretly wanted all along.

 

“You used him up,” Marcus accuses, dashing his bloodied knuckles against his pants. “You let him keep letting the demons in his head, didn’t you? I warned you! I told you it would burn him out.”

“You knew I would,” Mouse spits right back. “You knew perfectly well I was going to.”

“I told you not to,” Marcus growls, angry at her for doing it and angrier at himself because she’s right. He knew and he let it happen.

“God gave him a gift,” Mouse points out. “God wants him to use the gift.”

“No,” Marcus says, and there’s a clap of thunder in his words that brings certainty to them. “No, God wanted us to protect him from it.”

He knows what he’s saying is true. He knows those are God’s words, God’s meaning, through his mouth. And from the stunned realization filling Mouse’s face, he sees she knows it too.

“Come on, then,” Marcus says, suddenly tired. He starts heading for the truck.

“Where are we going?” Mouse asks.

“To find him.”

“How?” Mouse asks. “And did you forget about Bennett? Or the rest of them? Inside the Church, heading for the Vatican?”

“No,” Marcus says shortly. He did, actually, in a way. He can’t let go of the absolute terror he’d felt on the dock, the certainty that it was _Tomas’s_ terror he was feeling. The knowledge that Tomas is out there somewhere, alone and terrified, is taking over everything in Marcus’s head. But no, he knows they need to worry about all that. That’s the whole world, really, and not just Tomas, no matter how much Tomas matters more than the world to Marcus now.

“So we’re ignoring all that for one man?” Mouse echoes his thoughts.

“Yes,” Marcus says simply. “Because he’s the man who’ll fix it.”

She looks at him thoughtfully, seeing more than Marcus wants her to, but he keeps his eyes forward and steady and they set off. He doesn’t know where they’re going. He doesn’t know how to find Tomas. He just knows God is pointing them now. That had been Tomas’s job, before—being God’s divining rod, when Bennett had nothing for them. Now Marcus has to do it.

_Oh, God, let me live up to Your task_ , he prays silently. He doesn’t know how it’s going to work. He’s never had visions, not like Tomas did, and he doesn’t expect God to simply light up a road sign to show them the way. He’s half-expecting God to fuck off again, one message for Marcus every decade and beyond that Marcus is on his own.

It’s blasphemy, probably, thinking that way. And that’s a dangerous indulgence from a man relying heavily on God for a path right now. Marcus sternly reminds himself it doesn’t matter where God sends him for his own sake—but he needs to find Tomas. Tomas needs Marcus to find him. Marcus isn’t sure exactly what he’ll do if (when, it has to be when) he does, but he’ll build that bridge when he gets there. Or whatever the expression is.

“We came this way,” Mouse says suddenly, the first time she’s spoken in hours. “We found an entire family possessed just up the road.”

“He’ll not come back this way, then,” Marcus says, looking for somewhere to turn around.

Mouse eyes him dubiously. “You don’t think he could be retracing his steps?”

“No.” Marcus shakes his head. “He’s running. I’m assuming he’s let one inside?” Mouse inclines her head, not ashamed because she never is, but he can see a bit of disgrace lurking in her eyes. He should comfort her, probably, tell her it’s not her fault, but he can’t. He’d warned her, and he’s still angry. She did this to Tomas. It’s easier to stay angry at her, blame her, than think of his own responsibility in the matter. There will be plenty of time for that once he’s found Tomas and sees the damage firsthand. “He won’t let it come back here. Not where the people have already suffered enough. He’ll be leading it away.”

He knows he’s right. He wonders if that’s God again, giving him that certainty, of if it’s just himself knowing Tomas. He’s not sure which one he hopes it is.

They’re just driving. Marcus doesn’t know how he’s going to know when they’re getting closer, how to figure out if they’re going the right way. Will God strike them down if they’re going the wrong way? For a man who’s spent his entire life working as God’s hands, Marcus is surprisingly ignorant of how this kind of revelation is going to work.

“Stop,” Mouse says suddenly. Marcus doesn’t question; there are no other cars on the freeway, so he hits the brakes.

“What?” Marcus asks.

“I don’t know.” Mouse has her face pressed against the window, peering out into the dark. “I don’t know, there’s just…something here.”

Marcus starts driving again, slowly, just enough to pull off to the shoulder of the road. He opens his door with a rusty creak and crosses in front of the truck to stand in a copse of weeds, hands on his hips. He tips his head back to the sky and waits. Mouse gets out of the truck, too, but she stays closer to it, leaving distance between them.

Nothing happens.

Marcus sighs and drops his head. It was arrogance to believe he could do this, that he could just blindly drive and be directed by God. He’s about to tell Mouse to get back in the truck when he hears a sound. It’s a rustling in the bushes and all the hair on the back of his neck stands on edge.

“Tomas?” Marcus calls. “Tomas?”

“Nope.”

It’s an old man, clearly with a demon attached, and he’s swinging at Marcus before Marcus fully realizes what’s happening. Marcus bites off a curse and ignores the guilt heavy in his stomach as he drives his knee into the old man’s stomach. But the demon is strong, and Marcus is losing this fight.

Until Mouse cracks the old man around the head with the butt of her handgun. He drops like a stone and the sudden silence makes Marcus’s ears ring again. He hates the way his heart leaps at the ringing, as if God is coming back so soon. It’s a different ringing and he knows it, but his body somehow hasn’t yet forgotten hope.

“Now what?” Mouse asks, looking down into the man’s scarred face.

“Now we exorcise him,” Marcus says wearily.

“Do we have time for that?” She asks, looking toward her gun. “I think we have more pressing issues.”

“You know my stance on that,” Marcus reminds her sharply, Tomas’s horrified eyes filling his mind. “And we might get information out of him.”

“Alright,” she says dubiously. “I thought you were the one in a mad dash to find your priest.”

“I asked God to direct us,” Marcus says, nudging at the old man with his shoe. “And He sent us a demon.”

“Typical,” Mouse huffs.

Marcus doesn’t respond other than to lean down and grab the man under the armpits to start hauling him to the truck. They have rope they can tie him down with until they find somewhere secluded to do the exorcism.

But he can’t say he disagrees with her assessment.

 

In Tulsa, they exorcised a seven-year-old boy who’d started speaking in tongues and biting everyone who came into reach. The exorcism hadn’t taken long; most demons don’t want children, really, because demons crave power and influence, neither of which children have. They watched the little boy hug his weeping mother and Tomas had wiped the sweat from his brow and said softly,

“You were that age.”

Marcus had blinked, so tired he could hardly piece together Tomas’s words, and then he’d nodded and shrugged. “My parents, you mean? Yeah.”

“So young,” Tomas went on, voice quiet and eyes faraway. “Like Luis. He’s always been a sweet boy.”

Marcus didn’t know where that was going, so he stayed silent. It’s a tactic that’s worked out alright for him through his life, as much as any tactic could with the life he’s led. The room smelled of vomit and demon sludge and Marcus wanted to leave. The scent of exorcism has haunted him as long as he can remember.

“I wish you hadn’t seen such a terrible thing so young,” Tomas had finally said. He looked at Marcus for the first time since he started talking, and he looked so sad Marcus almost wanted to apologize for something he hadn’t asked for and couldn’t change.

Marcus had shrugged. “Nothing I can do about it now,” he’d said practically.

Tomas had nodded, still so sad, and said, “I know. But I wish you could’ve been happy. You deserve to see beautiful things.”

He’d clapped a hand on Marcus’s shoulder as he walked away, and Marcus had been left stunned and silent in his wake. No one had ever told him he deserved much of anything, unless it was a beating or his excommunication. _You deserve to see beautiful things_.

He’d said it in present tense, and Marcus forced himself not to think too hard about that.

 

“Looking for your little cub?” The demon spits at Marcus. Marcus isn’t sure which agent of Hell started that whole thing, the lion and the cub, but he’d love if they would stop. He knows they won’t, of course, but he’s getting a bit tired of having his age thrown in his face, especially as it concerns Tomas.

They’re in an abandoned warehouse in northern California. It’s been over a month since Marcus got the call, the Godly call, to look for Tomas, and their only leads have come from whatever demons they happen to stumble upon.

Not happen to, Marcus reminds himself. God sends them the demons. Probably. Can God send demons? Does that imply He has power over them and allows them to possess people? Marcus shakes the thought from his mind. He can get philosophical once he’s sure Tomas is safe. Maybe Tomas will have the answers. This new demonic habit of speaking to each other is coming in handy for their search.

“Any ideas?” Marcus asks the demon. The middle-aged woman spits at him in response. Marcus rolls his eyes. Must be a young one.

Except then she surprises him by throwing out, “Forgot all about your man in the boat, have you? Got scared off and ran away again pretending to be on Heaven’s mission?”

Marcus looks at her steadily, ignoring the way she’s thrashing and trying desperately to kick him. Mouse comes to stand beside him, crucifix she’d had to dig out of her bag in the truck finally in hand.

“Shall we?” Mouse asks.

“In a minute,” Marcus says. He focuses on the demon again. “We’re going to kill you now. I’ll make it faster if you tell me what I want to know.”

She spits at him again, but she does taunt, “You don’t know where he’s heading? It’s not obvious yet? I thought you knew everything about him, _Father_ Marcus. Where would the little cub run when he’s hiding from papa?”

Marcus keeps his face neutral through sheer will alone, forcing himself not to react. Tomas is only hiding from Marcus to protect him, he reminds himself. It isn’t that Tomas doesn’t _want_ Marcus around.

Surely.

The demon cackles. “Oooh, yes, there’s the nerve. Maybe there’s no demon in him at all, did you think of that? Maybe he only wanted to get away from _you_.”

Mouse hits the demon with the crucifix, and it all goes normally from there. They leave the sobbing woman outside her farmhouse in her husband’s arms and Marcus points the truck south.

“Where?” Mouse asks. Marcus takes his time answering. It’s going to be a long drive, not to mention he’s not entirely sure how they’ll find Tomas once they get there, and he doesn’t know how many more questions he can handle. But he can feel her impatience, the thrumming energy emanating from her and reminding him they have another job after they find Tomas, and he half-glances at her before he mutters his answer.

“Mexico City.”

  


A man in Montana asked them to stay for dinner after they pulled the devil out of his sister. Marcus had been ready to decline—he didn’t do well with company, for one, and they had other places to be, not to mention the hovel these people were living in suggested they didn’t have much to share—but Tomas had put a warm hand on his elbow and said they’d be happy to stay. Marcus hadn’t put up a fuss or anything like that. It was Tomas with the visions, after all, and if Tomas could stand to wait then so could he. They could use the food, anyway.

There wasn’t much to the meal, a soup more water than substance and stale, hard bread. The sister, newly unpossessed, ate nothing. The brother ate little as well, and Marcus was nervous about taking the food. What would they have left, if he ate it? He’d gone without too often to wish it on anyone else. He still ate the food they gave him, though, a long-ingrained habit of wolfing down any food he could have in case it was too long before he saw any again.

Marcus jittered his leg as Tomas made small talk about the weather and wheat fields and American football. Marcus only barely kept himself from staring at the woman he’d slapped only hours before. In his defense, of course, he’d slapped the demon, not the woman, but it was her body it’d happened to, after all. He focused on his bowl to keep his eyes off her, and when he bored of his own reflection in the greasy reflection of the last splash of soup in his bowl, he watched Tomas eat.

Marcus had never seen Tomas turn down food, not even the most vile, squashed sandwich from the bottom of the heap. He ate everything methodically and always complimented the cook. He was never uncomfortable with someone else saying the blessing but always ready to do so himself if asked.

He was a good priest, Marcus thought, not for the first time. A good parish priest, the kind that put people at ease and made them want to keep coming to church, keep confessing, keep trying. Marcus had never had that ability. Something in Marcus put people off, and he wasn’t sure if it was a side effect of all the exorcisms and evil he’d seen or if it was simply an inherent personality flaw. A bit of both, probably, but either way, he’d never been and had never wanted to be a parish priest.

“Should we have eaten that?” Marcus asked after they left. Tomas was digging in his bag for a roll of Tums he kept in there, and Marcus secretly thought he wouldn’t need them if he didn’t spend so much time eating second or third helpings of whatever food someone offered him.

“It wasn’t that bad,” Tomas chided, contradicting his words by offering the roll to Marcus.

“I don’t mean the taste,” Marcus said, though that hadn’t been the most pleasant he’d encountered. In fairness, it had been far from the worst, too. “They didn’t have much.”

Tomas seemed to weigh his words in his mind. He did this often, and someday Marcus would like to ask if it was because he was trying to think of what to say or simply trying to put it into English.

“When you don’t have much, sharing means more,” Tomas finally said. “They weren’t offering out of obligation to us; they _wanted_ to share what little they had. It was the only way they could think to give us thanks. So we should accept and be gracious.”

Marcus huffed. “They teach that in seminary nowadays?”

“Yes,” Tomas admitted. “But my abuela did teach me that first.”

“Were you poor?” Marcus asked. He didn’t have to worry much about decorum. For one thing, he had no pretense of an upper hand here, since Tomas knew how Marcus had been raised. For another, there was hardly any decorum left between them anymore.

“Not so poor,” Tomas said. “But we visited the most poor every Sunday after church.”

“That’s a very Christian thing to do,” Marcus said, unsure of how else to respond. Tomas nodded simply.

“My abuela was the most Christian woman I have known.”

“And it was her who wanted you to become a priest?” Marcus half-remembered hearing something about that. Now Tomas’s eyes went distant. He looked out the window.

“She did.” He didn’t say anything else, and Marcus realized with something of a start that he wanted to bring sunshine back to Tomas’s face. He wanted to make him laugh. He wanted him to be happy. _When you don’t have much, sharing means more_ , Tomas’s words echoed in his head. Marcus didn’t have much happiness of his own, but here he was wanting to scatter some to Tomas. It scared him, a bit. Sentimentality was a dangerous thing for an exorcist.

It scared him for other reasons, too, but he decided not to think about those.

 

In the end, it’s Mouse who finds Tomas. Marcus gets them to Mexico City, though he’d vowed to never return here. Only his worry for Tomas is keeping thoughts of Gabriel from sending him spiraling. He figures they should look at the slums, some abandoned shack maybe, but Mouse looks in a crumbling mansion on a hill and there he is. Marcus realizes he should’ve known better than to look in the poorest area of town. Tomas would want to protect those people. He’d want to protect _all_ the people, of course, but there will always be something in Tomas that doesn’t quite trust rich people, not all the way, and it’s not his vow of poverty. Marcus stops in the doorway of the room Tomas has sequestered himself in. He’d tied himself down, even, and the sight of him sweating and bound and hissing with hellfire makes Marcus’s stomach drop.

“Oh, it’s you,” the demon in him says. “He thought you weren’t coming.”

“Release this servant of God,” Marcus says. The demon laughs.

“Servant of God?” It asks mockingly. “He can hardly tell the difference anymore. He was such a good boy, wasn’t he, until he ran into you and you brought hell to his doorstep.”

Marcus can’t use the holy water, can’t thrust out the crucifix like he normally does. It’s the demon it hurts, like he’d told Angela Rance, and if anyone were to understand why he did it, it would be Tomas. But Marcus can’t do it. He can’t watch Tomas’s skin bubble and burn. He can’t cause that pain.

The demon laughs again. “Getting soft in your old age, aren’t you?” It’s especially mocking coming from Tomas’s mouth, when Marcus has thought so often about—

He stops himself. The demon can’t hear his thoughts, not really, but he doesn’t want anything written on his heart for the demon to read. Mouse is praying from somewhere behind him and Marcus focuses on the sound so he doesn’t have to watch the way Tomas flinches with every word.

“He’s screaming in here, you know,” the demon says almost conversationally. “Most often they lock themselves up in a little room or they slip into the fantasy we give them. But not this one. He’s screaming.”

Marcus grits his teeth. This may be up to Mouse. He doesn’t know if he can take this. But he glances down again, into the eyes that aren’t quite right, a new pupil doing its best to take over the original, and he swallows hard. No, he won’t hand this over to someone else, not even Mouse. This is Tomas, and if someone is going to save him, it’s going to be Marcus. God sent him, he reminds himself. He pretends that’s the actual reason he’s so determined to save Tomas himself.

 

In a dingy motel bathroom in Idaho, Marcus was shaving for the first time in nearly a week; they’d had two demons to exorcise back-to-back and personal grooming hadn’t exactly been high on their list of priorities. Tomas was sitting in the doorway, watching, talking to him, while Marcus did his best not to shred his skin with a blunt razor they picked up in ten-packs for a few dollars.

“So you could have been a football player instead of a priest?” Marcus asked teasingly after Tomas finished a story about his high school team. Marcus tilted his head to get to his jawline better. Tomas didn’t answer for a moment, and Marcus could only see the top of his head in the mirror, just his hair and a strip of his forehead. His forehead was wrinkled, like he was furrowing his brow. “Tomas?” Marcus prompted.

“No,” Tomas finally said. Marcus could hear the smile in his voice. “I could have been a football _star_.”

Marcus laughed hard enough that he had to pause with his razor for a moment. “My mistake.” These brief moments of normal conversation between them kept him sane between the litanies and the exorcisms and the demons. It was strange, in a way, that they could see what they saw and then have a harmless conversation about childhood, but it was vital. They had to find ways to grasp at any semblance of normalcy they could find, some way to stay connected to humanity through casual conversation.

Tomas huffed. “What about you? Was there ever anything else you wished you could’ve done?” Tomas asked.

Marcus snorted. “Course not.” He went back to shaving. “Knew I’d never be any good at anything else, so I never gave it any thought.”

Tomas sighed. “Why do you do that?”

“Do what?” Marcus asked, deliberately tapping the razor on the side of the sink, cutting through the quiet camaraderie. Tomas was undeterred. He waited for Marcus to finish before he went on.

“I know you sat with Casey Rance for hours, no matter what anyone said about her body failing. Yesterday I watched you hold that man in your arms and cry for his soul. You love everyone so much.”

Marcus swallowed. “That’s our job, isn’t it? Love them as He does.”

“But what about you?” Tomas asked quietly. “You won’t even look at yourself in the mirror.”

Marcus put down the razor and braced his hands on the side of the sink, head bowed. “Vanity is a sin.”

“There is a difference between vanity and loving yourself,” Tomas pointed out. “You cannot love your neighbor as yourself if you do not love yourself first.”

Marcus wasn’t sure what kind of emotive dogma they were spewing in seminary nowadays, but that certainly had not been part of any of his courses. “Well,” Marcus started, but then he found he had nothing to follow up with. “I am what I am.”

Tomas sighed again. “Can’t you see yourself through their eyes? You’re…you’re like Michael. An avenging angel come to pluck them from the fires of hell and rescue them.”

Marcus scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He couldn’t quite stop his cheeks from heating up at Tomas’s description.

“I’m not,” Tomas defended himself. “You are. You think so lowly of yourself and it isn’t right.”

Marcus couldn’t have this conversation. There was no way he could put into words the way he felt, the constant guilt that chewed at every part of his brain, the nightmares that didn’t even end when he woke up, all the faces he saw behind his eyelids. He couldn’t explain Father Sean telling him if he couldn’t defeat demons he had no use at all, couldn’t explain his mother cursing his very existence or his father boxing his ears just for breathing. Tomas had some kind of family dramatics under the surface, Marcus could tell, but there was no question in Marcus’s mind Tomas’s grandmother had loved him. Marcus knew without a doubt Tomas had been hugged freely and often, Tomas had had his scraped knees kissed and bandaged. It wasn’t possible for Marcus to explain the stark difference in their upbringings and why that mattered as much as it did.

“What am I supposed to do about it?” Marcus asked, sharper than he’d intended. Tomas didn’t answer for a moment, long enough for Marcus to wipe the shaving cream off his face. When Tomas did answer, his voice was sad.

“Maybe you need someone to hold you in _their_ arms and tell you that you are redeemed and loved, too.”

Marcus threw the razor in the trash and pushed past Tomas, still seated in the doorway. “Maybe so,” Marcus had said flatly. “But I don’t see any volunteers for the job.” He stomped away and Tomas didn’t bring it up again.

 

They’re two days in and have made almost no progress. The only progress is the way Tomas’s skin is now pockmarked and his ear is bleeding. But sometimes, Tomas has moments on the surface, where he fights down the demon enough to speak for himself. Marcus often can’t follow what Tomas is saying, like they started a conversation halfway through.

“That isn’t what I meant and you know it,” Tomas growls at him at one point. “Marcus, don’t play dumb.”

“Tomas?” Marcus asks tentatively, but then it’s the demon again.

“I meant what I said,” Tomas says another time. He sounds sad and he’s looking directly into Marcus’s eyes. “And I won’t change my mind.”

“Tomas, I…?” Marcus feels helpless. He doesn’t normally let himself feel that during an exorcism. He’s too busy. It takes him an embarrassingly long time to realize he doesn’t understand Tomas because Tomas still thinks he’s in his own head, thinks he’s talking to the demon-made version of Marcus. It makes Marcus’s chest seize up a bit. He doesn’t want to think about Tomas interacting with any version of himself but the real one. He can’t imagine what kinds of things the demon is making Marcus’s caricature say. Marcus mucks things up enough that a demon version could only be catastrophic.

But finally, when the ninth day is slipping into the tenth, Tomas blinks at Marcus and his eyes focus for the first time in days and Marcus could weep because this is truly Tomas, seeing him and realizing he’s actually there.

“Go,” Tomas tells Marcus weakly. “This one is strong and I don’t know if you can exorcise it. It’s holding on so strong. Just shoot me and go. You have to get to Bennett. His Holiness needs you.”

Marcus brushes the sweaty hair off Tomas’s forehead and has to swallow twice before he can speak. “Not likely, my friend.”

“Marcus,” Tomas pleads. “Just leave me.”

“Would you do it to me?” Marcus challenges gently, his hands still in Tomas’s hair. Mouse is pretending to be asleep in the corner, though Marcus knows she isn’t. She needs sleep, so he wishes she were sleeping for real, but he can’t bring himself to censor their conversation even knowing she’s awake.

Tomas whimpers and Marcus has to keep stroking his hair, the only comfort he can offer just now. Tomas shakes his head slightly, not enough to dislodge Marcus’s hands. “Of course not.”

“There we are, then.” Marcus tries to sound cheery and knows he’s nowhere near it. “Don’t worry, brother,” he soothes. “A few more hours and we’ll be through the woods.”

Tomas half-laughs, half-sobs. “It’s coming back,” he warns. “Use the holy water, Marcus.”

“Don’t know if I can,” Marcus admits, voice choked. “Not on you.”

He can see the moment Tomas loses the fight and the demon takes over. Tomas has never sneered like that, not that Marcus has seen and he’s bet never at all.

“Touching,” it spits. “Don’t blame you for not wanting to mess up this pretty face. He’s a looker, isn’t he? Shame it’s wasted on a priest. Vow of chastity and all that. Oh, wait.” The demon makes Tomas’s laugh into something ugly and twisted. “He didn’t keep that one, did he?”

“You have no authority but that which is given,” Marcus starts up. He’s exhausted. He hasn’t slept in at least two full days and he’s been kneeling beside Tomas’s bed for so long his knees ache. He’ll stay as long as he has to. It’s just prayer, and he’s done that for longer.

“He gave it,” the demon reminds him. “Invited me in because he thought he could beat me.” It makes an exaggerated frown out of Tomas’s lips. “I don’t think it’s working out too well for him.”

“You have no authority but that—”

“I heard you the first time,” it says, bored. “Let’s talk about him breaking that vow of chastity, shall we? Did it with that married woman instead of with you. It bothers you, doesn’t it?”

Marcus grits his teeth as Mouse starts praying. She hasn’t looked at him once since she gave up her pretense of sleep, but he’s not worried about her judgment. He’s beyond being ashamed of that part of himself, and he doesn’t think it was ever a secret. Not from her, surely.

“Oh, but he would,” the demon says silkily. “Did you know he thinks about it? He does.”

“Shut up,” Marcus growls. He shouldn’t listen, shouldn’t engage, he knows this, but nothing about this is following what he knows. Not when it’s Tomas’s face he’s looking at, Tomas’s voice saying these things.

“He’d do it,” the demon says. “Not worth it at all, of course, we both know that, but he’s ready to condescend himself onto your prick the second you ask.”

Marcus is going to be sick. He’s not ashamed of himself for wanting men, no, but he is ashamed at the idea of him corrupting Tomas like that. Not that being with a man is a corruption itself, but _Marcus._ Marcus is the corruption, and Tomas is worth more than that.

“Oh, Marcus,” the demon makes Tomas moan. Marcus can’t breathe. “Oh, Marcus, please.” Mouse prays louder, yelling now, and Marcus wishes it could drown out the sound of Tomas’s voice calling out for him. Of course he’s dreamt of that. But it’s a perversion this way. He remembers during Casey Rance’s exorcism, when Tomas had been so upset about the way the demons take love and twist it, and he has to shake his head to clear it.

“He touches himself,” the demon says. “To thoughts of you. Do you like that? That’s what he always wants to ask you. Does that feel good? Oh, Marcus, do you like it like that? Tell me how you want me.”

“Forgive me, Tomas,” Marcus begs, and then he throws the holy water into Tomas’s beautiful face.

 

It doesn’t take long after Marcus stops holding back. He’d been afraid to hurt Tomas, but that’s not the mindset you can hold onto during an exorcism, especially not a strong one. Once Marcus breaks that first seal, the first fire of holy water against Tomas’s skin, it’s easier to remember he’s hurting Tomas to save him. It’s not the same way Father Sean used to beat him, telling him the pain would purify him. Marcus never had a demon in him that needed exorcising, no matter what his own parents or Father Sean had said.

The demon stopped thrashing during the recitation of the saints, and Marcus hopes it means the thing is on its last legs. Hopefully Tomas is regaining the upper hand. It’ll be Tomas who casts the thing out of his body, in the end, Marcus knows that. Marcus leans closer, warily, in case the docility is an act, but the thing doesn’t move a limb. Marcus leans closer, brushing his nose against Tomas’s like he’s thought about doing so many times in such a wholly different way.

“Child of God,” Marcus chokes out. “You are forgiven.” It’s the demon he’s telling, not Tomas, because Tomas has nothing to be forgiven of, but Marcus’s traitorous heart isn’t quite getting that memo. He’s never cried this much during an exorcism, and that’s really saying something. “Star of the Morning,” he continues. “You are clean.” He takes Tomas’s face in his hands and brushes his thumb against the long, jagged gash under Tomas’s left eye that appeared two days ago. That’s going to scar, probably, and Tomas’s perfect skin won’t be anymore. Marcus knows he’ll still find it perfect. “Fallen angel, you are redeemed.”

It doesn’t smell like a demon anymore, except for faint notes of sulfur. Mostly the room smells of sweat. Maybe some piss, because at this point Tomas’s been tied to this bed at least ten days and maybe more, if he did it long before they found him. Marcus doesn’t care. He ignores the dirt and sweat and pure grime on Tomas’s face and rests their foreheads together.

“Tomas,” he whispers. This isn’t part of any other exorcism he’s ever done and certainly not an official method from the Church, not even the one Mother Bernadette taught, but something in Marcus knows this will work, this will finally give Tomas the strength to expel the demon. He hopes it’s God telling him this time and not his own assumption or delusion. “Tomas, you are loved. Tomas, _I love you_.”

And then Tomas is heaving green-black sludge. Some of it gets on Marcus and he doesn’t _care_ , he’s so giddy he could laugh. He helps Tomas turn as much as he can with his arms still tied, just in case. He glances over his shoulder to Mouse, who is watching with narrow eyes but a faint smile on her lips. Tomas goes still. Marcus looks down into those eyes, those beautiful eyes, clear now and no demon pupil in sight, and he laughs in relief, tears starting to slip down his cheeks.

“Tomas,” he whispers.

“Marcus,” Tomas answers, voice raw. “Marcus, thank you. You saved me.”

“I think God did that,” Marcus tries. That’s usually Tomas’s line, and it makes Tomas almost smile.

“I don’t know,” Tomas says, shocking Marcus. “I think it might have been you.”

Marcus presses his forehead against Tomas’s again and they breathe together. “Good to hear your voice again,” Marcus murmurs.

“And yours.”

Marcus pulls back and sets to work on the ropes around Tomas’s hands. Mouse scrambles forward and gets the other one, faster than Marcus’s trembling fingers can figure out his, and then gets Tomas’s legs untied. Marcus helps Tomas sit up, and Tomas falls forward to lean on Marcus. He wraps one scratched and bleeding arm around Marcus’s neck and puffs out a breath against Marcus’s cheek.

“I thought I was going to hell,” he admits shakily. “I thought I would never see Olivia and Luis again.”

“Not on my watch,” Marcus says, laughing a little through his tears. “You know I’d never leave a lady disappointed like that.” Mouse snorts as she heads out of the room. Well, Marcus deserved that.

“And you,” Tomas says softly. Wonderingly. “I was so afraid I would never see you again.”

“Here I am,” Marcus says around the lump in his throat.

“Here you are,” Tomas agrees. He raises a hand to caress Marcus’s cheek and Marcus tries not to openly sob. “Marcus.”

It’s not a demon trick. This is Tomas, leaning against Marcus and touching him so softly. This is Tomas, looking at him like he’s a gift from God Himself instead of a dirty orphan barely worth the five quid he fetched. Marcus swallows hard.

“Tomas.”

Tomas meets his eyes for a few heartbeats, examining him. Marcus isn’t quite sure what Tomas finds, but it makes him smile. Seeing that smile, the real smile, on Tomas’s face makes Marcus’s heart soar. And then Tomas leans forward and presses that smile against Marcus’s lips.

“I couldn’t tell you before,” Tomas says, basically mouthing the words into Marcus’s mouth. “Because I was a little busy. But you should know, Marcus, I love you, too.”

Marcus laughs, or maybe he sobs, but either way he likes the feeling. He nods, unable to speak, and Tomas laughs, too. He’s weak, and they won’t be able to move on for at least another day or two while he gathers his strength. He won’t be strong enough to do more than sit up and ride in the truck for longer still. Marcus is pretty sure Mouse is off finding food for them all, and hopefully this place still has running water so they can bathe. They need to move as soon as possible. They need to find Bennett, and they have to save the Pope, have to save the entire damned Church itself if not all of humankind.

Marcus doesn’t care, not right now. He holds Tomas, free of demons and clean and whole and _loving_ , in his arms, and he doesn’t care a whit about the dark ahead.

 

They head toward Rome, but they have to take the scenic route, to put it lightly. They have to make sure the demon in Bennett doesn’t know they’re coming, and they have to exorcise quite a lot of demons along the way. Mouse would leave the demons, if not shoot the hosts and save them all time, but leaving a demon to run free has never sat particularly well with Marcus. Tomas, of course, can’t see a soul in pain and not stop to help. They make short work of every demon they come across, and at night Mouse pretends not to notice the way Marcus and Tomas curl around each other, no matter the temperature or the size of the sleeping space they’ve found.

“It’s not a sin,” Tomas declares. Marcus hadn’t been worried, not for himself. He’s not a priest anymore. He has no vows to uphold and no qualms about sins. But Tomas does, and somehow he’s decided this isn’t breaking them.

“No?” Marcus checks. He’s glad, of course, Tomas has decided this. He doesn’t want to change Tomas’s mind. But he’d like to know Tomas’s reasoning, and he has to know Tomas is sure.

Tomas graces him with a smile. “No. Of course not,” he says, like it’s obvious. “God sent us to each other. Why would He do that if He didn’t want us to love each other?”

Marcus never has an answer for that. Tomas never expects one.

But sometimes Tomas has trouble distinguishing what’s real and what isn’t. The demon was in his head for so long, for months, and most people don’t come back from that. Fewer want to. When something happens that leaves him unsure, he squeezes Marcus’s arm. He looks to Marcus for reassurance, and Marcus can’t explain the awe he feels at holding that responsibility in his hands, like a baby bird he once found out of its nest. He treats this duty with the utmost care, a new gentleness he didn’t know he possessed after his lifetime of fire and brimstone and so much cruelty.

Marcus doesn’t nod or tell Tomas it’s alright. A demon could replicate that easily. Instead, Marcus clasps Tomas’s hand in his own and looks into his eyes and says, “Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.” He doesn’t have to finish the full prayer. It’s enough for Tomas—remembering their first prayer together, all that time ago, a lifetime, it feels. And for all their tricks and false consciousnesses, demons still can’t call upon God.

Tomas always nods, reassured, and says, “Amen” despite the fact that the prayer isn’t finished. He always smiles, that beautiful smile that reminds Marcus this is Tomas and no one else. He always directs his smile at Marcus, specifically, and Marcus doesn’t feel the least bit blasphemous when he thinks he’s seeing the full glory of God in that smile.

Marcus doesn’t know, realistically, how they’re going to save Bennett, or the Pope, or the Church. He only knows one thing, and it’s that they’ll do it together. That’s enough for him.

**Author's Note:**

> It's lite on actual exorcism stuff because I'm not Catholic and have no idea the Catholic imagery/saints/prayers/whatever that go into it and I am too easily scared at the idea of possession to do much research lol.  
> [my tumblr](http://biblionerd07.tumblr.com)


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